Eric Phillips arrested for 2025 murder of nursing student Elayjah Murray in Kansas City

Eric R. Phillips II was taken into custody months after being charged with the November 2025 shooting death of teenager Elayjah Murray in Kansas City.

Fugitive arrested in connection with Kansas City teen's death

Google News MT — Crime (en) reports that a man sought in connection with the killing of a Kansas City teenager has been taken into custody, several months after charges were first filed against him.

Eric R. Phillips II was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning by the U.S. Marshals Service Midwest Violent Fugitive Task Force. Task force officers located him at a residence near 40 Highway and Sterling Avenue in Independence, Missouri, at approximately 2 a.m. He was taken into custody without incident and transferred to the Independence Police Department.

Phillips faces charges of first-degree murder, armed criminal action and abandoning a corpse. According to court documents, he shot Elayjah Murray multiple times while she was in the back of his car during the early morning hours of 28 November 2025.

Murray, a teenage nursing student, had returned home for the Thanksgiving holiday when she went missing. Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department officers discovered her body a day later. Cell phone data placed Phillips in the area where her body was found.

Jackson County prosecutors filed charges against Phillips in December 2025, but the case was initially sealed. It was later unsealed in an effort to assist investigators in locating him.

Murray had been pursuing a nursing degree and had completed clinical placements and prerequisite coursework during her senior year of high school at the time of her death.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)